Heartstrings
by JimmyDANj2
Summary: She was gruff. Brusque beyond comparison. Her existence nothing but a path trodden with spite, beaten down by her own solitude. She walks her mission gracelessly, deafened by her destined loneliness. But without warning or reservation, he intrudes. Tags along without care or conduct. And she doesn't quite have the words to make him leave. The story is theirs and theirs alone.
1. Companion

Companion

"Why are you following me?"

"I need a reason?"

"Leave me alone."

He giggled, and it was awful. Grating, the slightest bit shrill, the unfettered delight pulling at her every muscle, standing her hair on end.

"Get. Lost."

"Nope."

Her jaw nearly unhinged before she roughly worked it back into place. Behind her, as she swiveled to glare at him incredulously, was a valley carved with sunken landscapes.

She wanted very much to ask him what the hell his problem was, who he thought he was – _who the fuck did he think he was?_ – to punch his nose back into that unbearable face, twisted by cheer, slashing her with its blithe abandon-

But she swallowed, set her jaw square, gritted her incisors, squinted like she tasted sour air.

"Whatever," she allowed, uncertain why she relented except that she thoroughly did not care.

And her every stomp was laced with grudge as he happily trailed behind her down the road.

* * *

 **Author's Note** :

So yeah, I've started yet another story, but I'm hoping I won't regret it down the line. I have a habit of becoming long winded and drawing everything out, squeezing every drop I can from my writing, and though that's not necessarily bad, I sort of want to curb it and try my hand at being more concise, saying more with less, all that and what have you. Plus, I've found I have trouble updating other fics in a timely manner because I obsess over too much and each individual chapter ends up being stupidly long and involved.

So this is basically going to be a collection of (hopefully) extremely short drabbles focusing pretty much only on these two. Don't worry about things making sense down the line, because I promise they will, as I do have a sort of vague plan for the plot. Mostly, though, these will be written impromptu and without too much thought or planning behind each chapter, basically blurbs that I think up as I go.

I have this horrible feeling that I'm going to fail miserably, lol.

I promise this is the only time you'll have to deal with me yammering this much, I'm trying with all my might to make this series of drabbles be to the point as possible! Since they're so short, they _should_ be coming very quickly as I churn them out in succession.

Don't forget to leave some feedback and let me know your impressions!


	2. Right Mind

Right Mind

Waking up to the clod's sunny disposition has her even more dour than usual.

"Well, hi!"

"You're insane."

"Good morning to you, too!" he quipped.

She couldn't even be sure that was sarcasm.

"Look," she grunted, hours later. "How long are you gonna keep this up? I'm not putting you up for any nights, so if you're secretly some missing princeling used to gilded spoons shoved in your mouth, you'd better-"

"Oh, I don't mind," he smiled. "I like the stars, so…"

He shrugged, the same big-dimpled grin still impossibly adorning his face like some tawdry ornament.

She asked him, through clenched teeth as she breathed between their gaps, "So what's this about? You ever gonna tell me?"

Again he shrugged, still obliviously (disgustingly) cheerful.

Some foreign while passed, and he piped up.

"I saw you, you know. That other day when I came with you."

"You mean the day you started _trailing_ me like a _dog_ ," she muttered, mostly to herself.

It was the first – most likely, the last – time he mentioned it directly.

"When you saved that old couple as they were attacked by bandits," he clarified, nodding.

"Thing is," and for once he stopped walking without her having to. "The thing is, people aren't like that anymore."

He gesticulated wildly in some unfathomable, needlessly animated gesture.

And she stopped too, if only because she hadn't yet seen him without a ridiculous smile plastered to his mug up to this point.

"People don't do things like you did. Not many I've seen, anyway. 'F you ask me,"

And _there_ was his foolish, foolish grin, back and even wider and possibly more sickening than before.

"Maybe you're the one who's insane, huh?"

And from then on, she decided it wasn't worth it, and dropped the matter of his stalking entirely.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

Funny thing is I had the idea for these drabbles and the characters' roles before I decided who would actually be the characters themselves, but I really did eventually want to make it about these two, so if they seem OOC, that'll be why. Fear not, they're still them at their core, and I'll be sure to make that clear soon enough.


	3. Sword

Sword

"Have you heard anything about this?" she asked, pulling out a yellowing sheaf of parchment. She smoothed out the decrepit folds until the frayed edges stuck flat to the countertop.

The bartender shuffled forward to peer intently at the picture.

"Well, that's the goddess-be-damned blade that tore all those places t' shreds, innit it? Everyone knows that."

She crooked her finger downward and tapped an impatient tattoo upon the crinkled surface.

"What I _mean_ is if you know the whereabouts. I'm looking for it."

"Well now," he shifted uncomfortably. "Well now, it's right shifty, that sword. Lots o' people come and go 'round here, but they all're scared witless when it comes to that thing. Dunno if there's much to tell. 'Course,"

And a grotesque leer overtook his countenance as he none too subtly licked his lips.

"If you make it worth my _while_ , y'know, maybe it'll jog my memory."

But she had already scoffed and turned her back, snatching up her picture.

"Screw you," she said nonchalantly over her shoulder.

"Now hang on a minnit, missy-"

Without breaking stride, her hair, sleek and blazing like a tongue of fire, formed a fist that collided with the bartender's jaw, sending him sprawling against the cabinet. Shards of wine glass sprinkled to the unkempt floor.

"Link, stop dragging your feet," she growled, before shouldering her way moodily past the swinging door hinge.

Link threw one sheepish glance back at the dazed barkeep, before traipsing merrily after her.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

Mother of god, it is SO HOT where I am right now, I can't move or blink I'm cooking in my own pool of sweat please send help.


	4. Amends

Amends

"So you're looking for something?"

Link drew up to her side and slanted a smile in her direction.

"What's it to you?" she snorted.

"Well, I'm your friend."

"Friend?" she glared at him. "Don't push your luck."

And she stalked off with hardly another glance backward.

When they broke for camp, the night was strangely silent. She realized the problem as her eyes flickered briefly towards the unusually quiet oaf across the fire.

She folded one leg uncomfortably beneath the other.

"Hey, uh…"

She struggled as he gave her his attention. She fisted her hands in the dirt. His grin was aggravating _normally_ , but seeing it like this – dim and forced and nothing like his irritating chirpy self – struck a chord with her as it never had.

"Look, you _can't_ tell me you've never heard of it," she snapped defensively – because her anger was her first and last resort.

When he tilted his head quizzically, she grumbled and averted her gaze.

"The _blade_ , idiot. What do they teach kids nowadays? The Blade of Evil's Bane was the _first_ thing to go insane when the goddesses went mad all those years ago. You been living under a rock or something?"

Link merely let his gaze linger for several moments, before-

"I'm not a kid," he pointed out. "'M just about your age."

But his smile had returned in full force.

Again, she scoffed, before turning away, her cheek dropping against the gravel.

"Get to sleep. Don't blame me if I leave you behind in the morning because you wouldn't get off your lazy ass."

"Wouldn't dream of it!" he crowed happily.

Because it wasn't an apology, but he understood too well that it was all she knew how to give.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I don't intend for any of this to go all full blown awkward exposition, but my mind gets away with me when I don't notice, so be sure to catch me on it and let me know if you find fault!


	5. Construct

Construct

"You're really stubborn," he smiled.

The look she sent him was so smeared with disdain, even she was impressed that he didn't recoil.

"About yourself, I mean," he explained. "You're great, y'know. It's just that you don't seem to think so."

She pursed her lips ruefully.

"I'm nothing," and her bitter gaze swept the ground she traveled. "Whether you remember that or not is up to you."

He impatiently sidled up alongside her.

"Midna, you make it a point to help anyone you come across. Look, there's a golem now. You're postponing your search for the sword just to kill these things. I know you might hate to be called 'noble,' but if the shoe fits-"

" _Drop it_ ," she snarled. "You're being stupid, as usual. Believe me when I say that _it's not like that_. I do this because…because…"

She gritted her teeth, before sprinting forward and venting her frustrations on the golem.

Clasps of twilight snaked their way across the ground at the golem's feet, before shattering its entire bottom half.

She flung her hair forward, enveloping the stone it was crafted from, searching out the sinews of energy that held the construct together.

Strands of blood orange slipped into crevasses between the stone, slithering into its veins.

And her hair lit like tendrils of living flame, and she _squeezed_.

Green, ethereal substance – not quite liquid, not quite vapor, but blood's counterfeit, a very travesty hardly resembling life – spewed every which way, and the golem crumbled.

She told him, "Link, you don't understand, and you can never understand. But I. Am. Nothing."

For once, Link was left speechless, and he looked very much like he wanted to cry.

Cry about her. Cry _for_ her.

She grimaced, and stepped across the golem's remains, and told herself she could not care less.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Skipped a day, darn it! I'd like to say this'll be the last time, but well HAHAHAHA anyway have a minutely longer chapter to compensate. Let me know what you thought!


	6. Arrow

Arrow

"You sure you know how to use that thing?" she asked, peering somewhat apprehensively at him, a tad afraid he would hurt himself if left to his own devices.

"I'd say I'm a pretty good shot," he responded merrily.

She had always seen him with the bow slung over his shoulder, its worn oak bleak against his vibrant green clothing, so she figured he must have experience shooting it. However-

"It's just that I have a hard time envisioning you associated with combat at all," she claimed. "You're _you_ , after all."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"It wasn't meant as one," and she nearly succeeded in being scathing.

"It probably won't do anything towards killing them – y'know, at _all_ – but I can at least distract them for you. I can't just do nothing while you're off fighting."

As she dispatched the golems, Midna admitted, grudgingly, that though the steel glanced harmlessly across foreheads of stone, shoulders of jagged mineral, it was much simpler to do away with them as their attention was diverted.

"You learn quickly," she later noted. Her tone was almost accusing. "Most people wouldn't so immediately pick up that it's easy to take advantage of their one track minds."

Because though Midna was not exactly a paragon of camaraderie, she was never shy about giving due where it was owed.

"Thanks!" he beamed. "I also think it's pretty snazzy how you, y'know, blow them up from the inside out with magical glowing hair."

She did not smile, but then again, he smiled enough for the both of them and more.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Special thanks to VakaPyro for being super groovy awesome beautiful.


	7. Rose by any other

"What kind of name is 'Link,' anyway? Who named you, your grandmother?"

"Actually," he mumbled through a mouthful of roasted nuts. "Yeah. She did."

He turned to her with a broad grin, stretching what few freckles he had.

"Why? Are you finally interested in me?"

"Ugh," she swatted aside fragments of sprayed food in disgust. "Learn to swallow before you speak. What, your parents weren't around to teach you manners?"

"Um," he swallowed his mouthful. "They weren't. I…didn't get to know my parents. They were gone when I was little, so it's just been Grandma, 'Sis, and me."

"O-Oh."

Something curled in her throat and seized her tongue.

"I…" she attempted through dry lips. "I didn't know."

But he shook his head and smiled brightly towards her.

"Of course you didn't. Don't worry about it."

Serrated frost cracked beneath their feet, and through the swirling winds that bit across the silence, a castle loomed amidst the fog of cold.

Midna fidgeted.

"Let me have one," she sighed.

Link presented her his pouch of roasted nuts with nary a word.

"Better than I thought it'd be," she told him between crunches, her voice muffled.

"Isn't it?" his voice was similarly smothered.

"But next time," she gulped it down and glared half-heartedly.

"Use your own damn money."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Whammo! The unexpected double feature! Two in one day! Worship meeeeeeeee


	8. Princess

Princess

"You want an audience with Her Majesty?"

The guard narrowed his eyes in suspicion, whereas Midna merely rolled hers.

"Why else would I be here? You gonna stand aside or not?"

"Her highness is a very busy woman, so perhaps you might find it prudent to take your business elsewhere," he told her stiffly.

"Busy reclining in her velvet drapery, no doubt," she growled. " _Look_ , pal, this is _about_ whatever business she has that's worth doing. This is about making this whole fucked up world a little less fucked up. So if you know what's good for you and everyone else, _go fetch her_."

"Now see here-"

"It's alright, let them in."

The princess' voice was smooth and controlled. It rang with an otherworldly quality that washed over them like silk, like streaming frost and bottled lightning.

"Y-Your Majesty! There is no need for you to be down here, I can handle-"

"I assure you, it's fine. Maintain your post."

The guard saluted, before doing as he was bid.

"So to whom do I owe the pleasure?" Zelda inquired, her lips pressed thin.

"Oh, no, the pleasure's all mine," Midna drawled, scowling. "I'm out of options. You and that overlord boyfriend of yours are the closest things to 'leaders' we have left, so I figure if anyone knows, you do."

"And what may I help you with?"

Zelda wore a somewhat sad expression, and traces of exhaustion lingered beneath her eyes, amongst her sunken blue depths.

"Tell me where the sword is."

"Sword?"

"Don't play dumb," Midna snarled. "It doesn't become you. The Blade of Evil's Bane. The Master Sword. If you know its location, I'm all ears."

Zelda's gaze meandered over behind Midna, just beyond her shadow.

"And who is your friend?"

"He's got nothing to do with this. Do you know, or don't you?"

Zelda sighed, running a gloved hand through an unruly curtain of auburn.

"Follow me," she told them wearily. "I'll take you to someone who does."

Midna frowned.

"And who would that be?"

Zelda laughed without humor.

"My 'overlord boyfriend,' as you so put it."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Three wild guesses who shows up next chapter. I bet godtierGrammarian can tell me, nyuk nyuk nyuk. Oh, and it's a bit late for it, clearly, but mind the rowdy language. That's the extent of the rating, I promise.


	9. Conqueror

Conqueror

When Zelda swung the door open, the first thing Midna took note of was the desk, – so pristine and pale it nearly blinded her – stark against his dark skin.

He loomed over them as he stood, placing one large hand against his chair to draw himself up.

Gait sturdy, jaw taut with strength, Ganondorf turned to greet them.

"Hello," he inclined his head without smiling.

Perching herself delicately on his bed, Zelda gestured towards the visitors.

"She wants to know about the sword."

Ganondorf's eyes were half-lidded in contemplation.

"You are the Sol," he nodded towards Midna. "I've heard."

She bristled.

"That's _none_ of your business," she spat vehemently. "Just point me towards the blade and I'll get out of your hair."

"Why the hostility?" he, surprisingly, chortled. "I don't believe we've met."

"Like I need to _know_ you to know you're a real piece of work," she snapped. "It's because of the stunts you pulled that the Goddesses flipped on us."

"I would prefer not to be held culpable for the endeavors of my ancestors, infamous though they were."

"Yeah, because you're just the picture of innocence now, aren't you?" she scoffed. "Focusing your talents for destruction down other avenues doesn't suddenly make you a saint."

"You're right," Zelda intervened before Midna could go further. "I have nearly zero doubts that, had the Goddesses not sewn chaos first, then Ganondorf eventually would have."

She looked towards him in what might have been scorn, or perhaps determination, or perhaps affection.

"But they did," she went on. "One thing he's taught me is that peace is not an ideal. It is something blood is shed over. It is something defined by tides of conflict. He's lent me his power, and without power, humanity might have already been extinguished."

And it was Midna's turn to look weary.

"What. Ever."

She sighed, not even shrugging Link's hand off her shoulder.

"Just tell me so I can get moving."

"If you insist," Ganondorf replied, rummaging through drawers until he happened upon a cluster of parchment. "Let me ask, however. What are your intentions regarding the blade?"

"You've 'heard,' haven't you?" she snarled, losing her patience. "What the hell do you _think_ I'm gonna do to it?"

He handed over the parchment; every step deliberate, every heave of motion controlled.

"Then you'll be pleased to know that I found it myself. It's in an alcove to the north, away from prying eyes. Follow the map, you'll be there in four days' time."

He peered at Link inquisitively, almost abnormally interested.

"He is going with you?"

She ignored him and seized the map without a backwards glance, marching heavily towards the door.

"Midna," Zelda called softly.

" _What?_ "

The princess gave her a sad smile.

"Just know that, if it was Ganondorf instead, we would at least stand a chance."

And the door slammed shut behind her as the hallway's distant echo made Zelda's words ring painfully in her ears.

* * *

 **Author's Note** : Oof, sorry I couldn't get this one out sooner. Bit of a long one, but also the one I'm least sure about. Review, perhaps?


	10. Condemned

Condemned

"You might as well ask," Midna sighed. "I know you're _itching_ to."

"Wh-Whaaat?" Link laughed nervously. "No, I don't want to pry or anything."

"Forget it," she deadpanned. "You'd be bursting at the seams until I tell you. Impatient mutt."

Link blinked. He could have sworn that she maybe perhaps sort of almost had a teasing lilt to her voice.

He chalked it up to his imagination.

"Well, how to put this," she mulled.

She glanced at him.

"I'm slated for death."

And Link looked as if a weight dropped into his stomach and toppled his spine.

"What?" His expression disclosed volumes of his numb disbelief.

Slowly, horror crawled its way onto his features.

"G-Good one," he tried, attempting a dry chuckle that came out more as a cough. "If this is your way of telling me to butt out and mind my own business, trust me, I can take a-"

"Please," and she actually smirked. "You're the one person I've met who's physically _unable_ to take any sort of hint. But I'm serious."

His eyes widened.

"I've always been meant to meet my end by that sword," she murmured, tilting her gaze far into the murky skies. "If I'm lucky, I'll at least take it to hell _with_ me."

"Midna, please, you _can't_ think-"

"Link, listen. You heard the bastard. I'm a Sol, and the last one left at that. It's not by pity or remorse or kindness that my life was spared."

She turned, and for the first time since he's known her, she smiled.

A smile mired in sorrow. A smile soft as it was empty. Beautiful as it was horrible.

He never wanted to see such a lost, forlorn expression on her face ever, ever again.

"My existence," she breathed. "Has always been nothing."

Her smile twisted bitter.

"Nothing, nothing, _nothing_ more than a means to an end."

* * *

 **Author's Note** : Okay, I did not plan for this to come out that depressing. Uh. Poor Midna. Hold your britches, everyone, more coming in just a jiff!


	11. A Life

A Life

"Are you sure they won't attack us?" Link's trepidation was clear.

"We're nearing the alcove," Midna nodded to herself. "These golems were Goddess-spawned, just like all the others, but Lord Tyrant-britches himself forced them under his command. It means we're in his territory. Figures it's where he'd put the sword, the smug bastard."

Link nodded, but his eyes darted uneasily from one prone behemoth to the next.

"Where I come from," Midna continued from before, and Link listened despite the churning of his stomach. "Isn't too different from Hyrule. Or what's left of it, anyway. Like you, the Twili and their very livelihood revolved around the Goddesses. We worshipped them, and you could say our artifacts were our entire culture."

She held pale fingers in front of her, flexing them wistfully.

"Our artifacts. The Sols. Beacons of our only light, blessed by the Goddesses from generation to generation, and always everything to us. Imagine our surprise when this time around, the Sols manifested as people instead of objects."

"But," she barked out laughter. "We might as well have been objects anyway, the way everyone looked at us. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered when everything went to hell."

She shoved him, and it was very nearly playful.

"And _you_ don't know a thing, do you? Where were _you_ when our creators went berserk? It's like you've been removed from all the tragedy," she laughed.

Link had never heard her laugh so much in one sitting, and it was uncanny, because he for once didn't find much remotely funny.

"My parents were among the first to get slaughtered when the Master Sword first attacked us," she mused quietly. "They tried protect me, and I guess it must've worked. I don't remember much except their faces as they died. I was about ten, and all."

She idly stole his hat as they walked, twirling it lazily around her finger.

"Most of my people soon followed. It wasn't long after that, I think, when I went insane."

At the stricken look on his face, she scoffed.

"All the Sols did. We and the blade are cut from the same cloth. Artifacts of the Goddesses. So it was only a matter of time before we follow suit and wreak our own havoc, wouldn't you agree?'

"Midna, please, you don't have to tell me, I…I get the picture-"

"Oh, but it's so elegant of them, don't you see?" she shouted, and it seemed like she was unable to stop.

"We very nearly wiped out what was left of us, but the tribe adapted! We tore down villages and piled bodies upon bodies, but it wasn't like they weren't attacked before!"

Her tone was so bitter, she could taste it on the roof of her own mouth.

"The sword left them prepared for magical onslaught. They subdued us eventually, the few of them that were left, and one by one, the Sols were executed. They were glad to do it. I would be, too, if I were them."

"Don't _say_ that," and Link was desperate. "You can't _say_ that."

Midna let out a breath, tickling strands of unkempt orange.

"But you know the rest. It was pure chance that I was the one spared. It was a waste to dispose of _all_ of us, you see. Wouldn't it be so prudent, _so_ elegant, to have my death be _fruitful_? The sword was still out there."

She breathed life, breathed death and earth and fire all at once.

"Don't you get it, Link?"

And he had a dreadful feeling that he really, really wouldn't.

"I'm the luckiest girl in the world."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I sincerely, sincerely hope this didn't come off as just lengthy exposition (our worst nightmare!) This is the longest chapter yet, and I'm not sure that's a good thing. It makes sense, though, since things are about to boil over something fierce!


	12. Maw

Maw

"Why do y _-you_ have to do it?" his voice wavered. "Why can't someone else?"

"Probably would if they could," she shrugged. "The oaf's the one who found it, you think he hasn't tried?"

Her sarcasm was familiar and comforting and daunting all at once.

"We were forsaken by our gods," she impatiently brushed aside his helping hand and hoisted herself up the rocky crags. "So whatever magic we had turned on us. The Triforce is long gone. Ganondorf and Zelda have been fighting with near nothing."

"They've even-" she grunted as she heaved her legs over the cliffside. "Resorted to old magic. The kind people used in that war over the Triforce way, _way_ back. It's how he can control the golems. But it stands no chance of beating genuine stuff like the Master Sword."

They stood at the mouth of the cave. Its dank walls felt like breath, its jagged floor a winding pathway that slithered like a tongue.

It welcomed their first steps, and Link felt the telltale cold finger of dread crawl up his spine, as if the plates of earth had shifted beneath his feet, as if he were about to be devoured.

"Those two are of a different caliber, though I hate to admit it. It's not your average joe that can drive off deities with nothing but their bones and their will. Anyone else at the reins, and no one would've lived to this day."

They peered into the darkness. The very throat of a monster.

"I-I wish you would reconsider," Link mumbled miserably.

It gave Midna pause.

"There was never a choice for me. But thanks anyway."

Together, they walked, and the shadows swallowed them.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** They're almost there. *smiles*


	13. Friend

Friend

At last they stepped out of the tunnel into the heart of the cave.

"It's...a clearing of sorts. Was this carved out?" Link wondered, his eyes roving the gravel chamber from his vantage at the entrance.

"Never mind that. Look."

Gouged, point down, into less a pedestal and more a dreary slab of stone, was the blade.

No light sifted through overhead, but the sword's incandescent gleam alone – writhing, almost alive, as if it were smoke and not light – illuminated the vacant cavern.

"One fell swoop," was all Midna left him as she sprinted towards it.

And indeed, her hair came alive in one fluid motion, a veritable crown of seething flames as it seized the sword, its hilt, its steel, its every surface.

She assembled hot, searing pressure, and-

The sword shattered.

Metal rattled to the ground, and Midna was left, frozen, her hair still rigid in its murderous position, its confines now vacant.

"It…It broke."

She uttered the words like they weren't real, like she could hardly dare to believe anything so ridiculous.

Her hair fell, her arms fell, and she looked, almost helplessly, towards Link.

"That's-"

She flung her gaze around the cavern, and it felt emptier than before.

"That's it? That's…all there is to it?"

As if in answer to her prayer, or her dread, or her feeble blistering hope, the cavern rumbled.

Dust and rock sifted through the ceiling like light wouldn't, and Link scrabbled desperately for purchase as the earth seemed to tremble.

He made his way over to her just as the ground was ripped asunder. Stone monstrosities gripped jagged edges and hoisted themselves up from the created abyss.

And it was like they clambered up straight from hell.

"G-Golems…?" Midna stuttered, but then she fixed her gaze on the entrance they came from.

A barrier of blue had sprung up, translucent, and on the other side-

"Ganondorf. You followed us. This-"

And she noticed Zelda as well, her gloved hand clasping her other forearm in a death grip. The princess looked at once determined and uncomfortable.

"This was a goddamned _trap_?! You… _you_ …"

She struggled to find a term demeaning enough, but settled for leaping over in one stride and slamming her palm viciously against the shield.

It shimmered, but otherwise held steady, as a bead of blood trickled lazily from Midna's curled fist.

Her breaths came ragged, and her hatred was hoarse as she addressed them.

"I never trusted you, but I _thought_ …I thought you wanted the same things for this godforsaken land. I didn't believe you could…could be this _vile_."

And inches from her feral eyes, separated only by the barrier, Ganondorf raised his hand in a placating gesture.

"Midna. Calm yourself and listen. We _do_. We want the very same things you do."

" _Evidently,_ you don't!" she roared. "Evidently I don't fucking _know_ what you-"

"This was not a trap for you," Ganondorf cut across patiently. "This was a trap for _him_."

And astonishingly, Midna's anger melted away, however briefly, in a moment of true confusion.

"What? For 'him'? Who's 'him'? You'd better start making sense, or-"

"I admit," Ganondorf glanced briefly at Zelda, who nodded. "The sword is a fake by my own design. It was meant to lure you in, and by doing so, lure him in by the same token."

"Okay, now I'm convinced you're off your rocker. I'm not _with_ anyone dubious. What the hell are you talking about?"

"The _real_ blade, of course."

Midna's expression was blank.

"Still not following."

And for the first time, Ganondorf lost his patience.

"The sword, Midna, the _sword_! Do you honestly think I could have located the Master Sword, which was hidden so thoroughly for _years_ that no force on Earth could flush it out? The only one – the _only_ one – capable of finding and destroying it is you. And lo and behold, you already have."

He nodded towards a point beyond her shoulder, where things had grown quiet.

At last, she caught on.

"What? _What_?" she spluttered, laughing. "You think _Link_ …? You've really lost it, old man! I mean, do you hear yourself? He's _Link_."

And she continued to laugh, actually clutching her sides amidst her mirth.

"Midna," Ganondorf said between clenched teeth. "You need to mind yourself and _listen_. The Sol and the sword were once one, eons past. They are two halves of a whole. Kindred spirits. The only ones to equal the other. You are drawn to each other _by nature_."

"Yeah, great history lesson and all, seriously," she drawled. "But I've had enough, so if you don't mind…"

"Then," he sighed. "Why don't you see for yourself?"

He gestured towards the pedestal.

And Midna dared to look. But her heart had already leapt in her throat and her mouth had already dried. Somehow, she knew before she even gazed upon the scene.

Where there were golems, now there nothing but crumbling remains on earth torn open.

Link stood in the middle, in front of the pedestal, with gravel peppered across his shoulders and his head downcast.

His arms glinted like steel, and Midna knew instantly that they could slice anything – absolutely _anything_ – upon touch.

"My golems are no match for the Master Sword, after all," Ganondorf acknowledged solemnly.

Moments flitted by; charged, a universe in each one, and it was something like agony.

"Link…" she spoke, at great length, her eyes trembling. "Why?"

His head rose, and he chuckled, and it was at once dark and fleeting and everlasting. She had never seen anything like the expression he wore just then, and she became frightened for the first time in a long while.

Not for herself. Never for herself, but for _him_.

"Why _not_ , Midna?" and he was so completely bitter she nearly recoiled. "You said that…"

And he was again, thoroughly familiar, so thoroughly _Link_ as he gestured again in that needlessly wild, unfathomable manner.

"You said that I would never understand you, but you couldn't be farther from the truth. _You_ don't seem to get that…"

He struggled for words, and Midna could only listen, terribly enraptured.

"…That it's _so much_ easier than you think to imagine me like this!" he gestured to himself, to the ruined bodies of stone, the eviscerated fragments echoing his despair. "That _I'm_ so tarnished like you wouldn't _believe_."

He shouted, to the heavens above, or perhaps the hell beneath, or perhaps to anyone who would listen.

"You thought I was far removed from it all, but of course I understand, because Midna, I've _lived it_! I've lived every. Bloody. Inch of it! I was the _first_ one the Goddesses abandoned!"

"Midna, please!" Ganondorf beseeched. "Tune it out! You're the only one who can do it! Destroy him before he escapes, or _worse_."

But Midna ignored him. In that terrible way, she had eyes only for Link.

"There's so much blood between my fingers," he gnawed at the inside of his lip. "That I can't _unsee_ it. Your parents, my parents, thousands, millions, I've butchered them all and laid waste to them _all_ , and you and I are the same, but we're so, _so_ different."

Ganondorf cursed at Midna's inactivity, and coursed magic through his veins.

"Midna, you're-" Link faltered. "Despite _everything_ that's happened to you – what's happened to me as well – your first instinct when you snap out of it is to _help_ everyone, while mine is to seek out the one rumored to be looking for me and kill her before she can kill me. I nearly did, that day I met you."

He laughed almost derisively.

"Can you believe that? You do the right thing because it's _what should be done_. I can tell your quest has never been about vengeance."

Ganondorf's unstable magic triggered, and golems sprouted from the ground, thrice as innumerable as before. The cavern splintered down the middle, and the ceiling ruptured.

Link grunted, his body a smooth blur as he swatted aside golems like they were flies, a path of mayhem trailing his arms as they seared the air, twin blades of havoc.

"Midna," he pleaded. "Midna, you're stubborn, quick-tempered, tactless, and the _kindest person I have ever known_."

"Link," she found her words finally, but her voice, her stance, her eyes all wavered.

She searched his eyes desperately.

"Wh-What do you…"

She gulped.

"What do you _want_ from me?" came her whisper.

And for the first time since she's known him, she saw him truly angry.

"I," he screamed, as Ganondorf grabbed Zelda's hand to beat a hasty retreat,

"WANT," as he carved through a golem's torso,

"TO," as the alcove caved in,

"BE," and the ground unraveled beneath them.

"YOUR," he surged towards her like quicksilver and shielded her from falling debris.

" **FRIEND**!"

His hoarse cries – nearly shrieks – seemed to deafen the chaos, mute everything around her, and Midna matched his anger.

"You complete IDIOT!" she hollered. "Could you be any more STUPID?!"

She clutched his tunic furiously as they descended together into what was probably hell.

"You already are," she whispered, and even among the discord, it was all Link could hear.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Well, here we are. The momentous chapter. The big enchilada. I've had this moment in mind the entire time I was writing the other segments, and it was playing this scene out over and over inside my head that inspired the whole fic in the first place. Their exchange here existed before chapter one even existed. That said, I really, really hope I did my vision justice, and I hope even more that you guys enjoyed it.

Those of you wondering about Link and why there was so little revealed about him, it'd be great you've had some questions answered, because if so, that means I'm doing something right. Gosh, I hope not too many people saw this coming. I dropped a couple hopefully-maybe-subtle hints along the way and all…

Naturally, this chapter being what it is, it of course is not your typical drabble, haha. It's unlikely that many, if any, future installments will be this long, and they'll all be back to being short and sweet. (you heard right, it's not done yet! Far from it!)

Please, let me know what you thought. Did it meet your expectations? Was it lacking? I aim to please! *cheesy smile*


	14. Till the Dying Embers

Till the Dying Embers

 _The shroud of twilight, forever pervaded by ash, torn into by smoke and hungry flames. Homes rend apart, mounds of corpses, the valley brimmed with blood._

 _The fires at his back, licking greedily at the walls and picture frames, and at his fore a woman prostrate._

" _Please," she whispered across bloody lips. "Spare her. If you have any ounce of compassion remaining, if anything left in your soul belongs to you, –_ _ **anything at all**_ _– then please…kill me and leave her be."_

 _He remained silent; but then, his voice had long since died._

 _So she swiveled hastily, staying kneeled._

" _Midna," she tried to smile. "Midna, darling-"_

 _A glint of tarnished steel, and she was run through, falling to the floor with her eyes frozen wide._

 _He looked past the body to a girl, not two years younger than he, swathed in blankets, her crimson eyes round and trembling._

 _His steps past her were cold, merciless, and he paid her no mind._

* * *

"Hey," she shook his shoulders. "Come on, this is no place to be snoozing."

He stirred, before attempting to blink away the bleariness in his eyes.

"Rise and shine," she quipped, giving him a wan smile.

It was uncanny how his first reaction upon seeing her after the fact would be embarrassment.

He averted his eyes – almost _shyly_ , Midna noted with amusement – and mumbled something.

"What was that?"

He steeled himself – not literally, this time – and faced her.

"You're not even mad? I mean…you're sort of talking to the one who exterminated the majority of your people."

"Oh, it's not like I don't fully understand what a total _jerk_ you've been for keeping this from me," she glared. "But I'm not one to talk, am I? I of all people know what's like to lose yourself and feel like you'll never come back. I've killed more than my fair share, after all."

Link fidgeted awkwardly.

"So what now?" he ventured.

"Not sure," she threw her arms up and let them fall helplessly. "I've still got to…come to terms with this. With you. One thing I am sure of, you're not getting out of this easily."

She jabbed a finger to his chest, and he blinked.

"That is to say, I'm not gonna _let_ you. You're with me on this for the long haul, and if I have to drag you with me, I will."

Link managed a tremulous smile, one tinged with relief, before he looked around.

"Where are we?"

"We fell into this underground tunnel. Probably should've died, but seeing as we're both practically monsters, well…"

She shrugged.

He noticed the debris clogging up the only exit.

"It would seem that we're trapped," he remarked.

They looked at each other, before both nearly collapsing with hysterical laughter, clutching at each other to stay upright.

Because it was _terribly_ funny.

Still laughing, Link easily and carelessly flung one arm at the rubble and blasted it to smithereens.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I'm taking this thing to places hitherto unknown! Even I'm not sure where it'll go from here, but be prepared to have your socks knocked off!


	15. Amends, redux

Amends, redux

"I…dreamt about your mother."

Midna stiffened.

"That so?" she said, nonchalant.

"Well, at least," he looked at her apprehensively. "I think it was your mother. I don't know why it would come back to me now of all times, but…"

"Fantastic," she snapped. "No, that's great. You wanna tell me exactly how you killed her while you're at it?"

Link stumbled, his palm catching on jagged stone.

"I…I…" he stuttered, averting his gaze and hurrying ahead of her towards the village in the distance. "I'm s-sorry, forget I said anything."

Midna caught the tail end of his vulnerable expression and reached out, grasping his wrist before he could escape.

"Link, wait. That didn't come out how I wanted."

She tugged him down so they both sat.

"I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry."

"It's funny," he cracked a timid smile. "This is the first time I've ever heard you apologize for anything, but it's when all the blame – for absolutely everything – rests with me."

She sighed.

"Tell me about her," she said quietly. "Like I said, I don't really remember what happened when you attacked. Did she...say anything?"

"She begged for your life," he told her softly. "And I…and I cut her down. It was so _easy._ "

He shuddered.

"It always was. There was never any remorse or anything. No room, you know. No room for anything of what made me a person."

Midna moved her grip to his hand and curled their fingers.

"It's like I was forced out of my own head. And that's what frightens me the most. Because you were right to seek out my death. So was Ganondorf."

He looked her in her eyes, tinged the color of blood.

"They'll come back," he insisted. "They always will. And when they do, what's going to happen to me? They'll strip me down until I'm nothing left but that cold killer. They'll rip my soul alive from my body and I'll be _gone_. Maybe for good, this time."

Midna squeezed his hand tight until it hurt.

"But you weren't," she hissed. "You killed my mother, but you did as she asked, didn't you? I'm living proof that something in you fought back."

"That wasn't it," he maintained. "I just didn't _care_."

"Bull," she scoffed.

"Midna-"

"Link," and her gaze upon him was an inferno. It scalded him and set his every nerve ablaze, left him feeling numb and burning alive all at once.

"You _always_ care. Way too damn much, if you ask me."

And she wrenched him furiously to his feet, and she set them off at a pace so brisk, it left him no time to hang his head.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** My god, Midna said the "S" word! That's the _real_ plot twist, amirite? Lol.


	16. Encroach

Encroach

"Excuse me," a young lady shyly beckoned. "Are you, by any chance, the woman looking for that awful sword?"

"What?" she replied, irked. "Buzz off. And my _name_ is Midna."

"Oh, of course," the girl turned pink, but still smiled almost reverently. "I didn't mean to offend. I just think it's _so_ wonderful, what you're doing."

As she gushed, Midna raised an eyebrow.

"Save your breath. I haven't found the blade, if that's what you're on about."

Link surreptitiously choked back a strangled laugh.

"That doesn't diminish how brave and selfless you are!" the girl continued. "It must be so terrifying to pit yourself against that monster for so long, all by yourself."

"Yeah, Midna," Link snickered. "Terrifying, isn't it?"

"That thing's a real _pain,_ I'll give you that much," she quipped, more towards Link than her admirer. "Sometimes I wonder why I even bother."

"It's not like I haven't heard about everything else you've done, all those people you've saved!" the girl quickly blustered. "You're a…"

"A _what?_ " Midna snapped.

The girl drew back, intimidated, but mustered herself and pressed on regardless.

"A hero! You're a hero, and heaven knows we need more of those in these times."

"Listen, you deluded girl-"

But she would have none of it, and seized Midna's arm, who was so surprised she actually let it happen.

"My name's Anju," she insisted. "Our village has the _best_ coffee you'd find anywhere. Do you like coffee? I absolutely _love_ coffee. Please, I…simply have to thank you somehow for all you've done."

"Let _go_ , you crazy-"

"Oh, she'd love to!" Link cut her off. "Wouldn't you, Midna?"

Midna fixed him with her most withering of looks, and to his credit, he only kept smiling as he prodded her to accompany Anju.

"I'll get you for this," Midna promised, and Link laughed, before leaning in.

"Y'see?" he whispered, and she was bewildered as his smile slanted wistfully. "I'm not the only one who's noticed how exceptional you are."

"A-Are you her boyfriend?" Anju bit her lip almost impatiently. "You can come along if you want-"

"Oh, I'm fine! Make sure she has fun," he waved them off.

"Whatever," Midna sighed, not having it in her to care any longer.

And she let herself be dragged along as Link lingered behind.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I'm sorryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy for the waiiiiiit. Hopefully I'll whip the next one up for you in no time at all to compensate. Also see what I did there? With Anju? And…the coffee…? And…I'M HILARIOUS OKAY SHUT UP.


	17. Home

Home

Indulging a starry eyed fan over coffee had quickly devolved into full-fledged "festivities" at the nearest bar, where Midna unwillingly entertained what seemed to be the entire village through clenched teeth.

Night had long since fallen by the time she managed to escape.

"Not drunk, are you?" he laughed.

Midna swiveled on the spot, seething, and saw him reclined against one of the few patches of grass that hadn't yellowed.

"No, I'm not," she growled. "No thanks to you. I hope you realize you're not off the hook for this anytime soon."

"You had fun, don't deny it."

"Oh, yes, _plenty_ of fun," her tongue dripped with sarcasm. "A real riot, having to push inebriated busybodies off of me as they clambered over each other to worship me for no good reason."

"Hardly aren't any reasons," he gestured towards her. "Anju was right, like I've been trying to tell you. You're a hero."

"Would you _stop_ with-"

She frowned, narrowing her eyes.

"Going somewhere?" she asked lightly, but Link knew better.

"Midna, hear me out-"

"No, no, no," she cheerfully (he winced) supplied. "You'll have to excuse me, but it _looks_ like you've packed up all your stuff and were preparing to leave without telling me. It must be my mistake, though. Perhaps I _am_ a bit tipsy."

The edges of her voice were splashed with venom as they slithered across the foliage and crept up his spine.

He found himself with nothing to respond with for all of a few, excruciating moments.

"I was going to leave a note," he offered quietly.

"A n-"

And she seemed about ready to tear his head off as her cheeks were splotched with crimson.

"Midna, you're not like me," he finally said. "I've been alone for all my life, but you don't have to be. Can't you…can't you see it?"

He motioned weakly towards the bar she came from.

"People adore you. They know that you're wonderful. That, inherently, you might be the most selfless person on the planet right now. They see what I see."

"What the _hell_ does this have to do with you abandoning me?"

She spoke the words like they were acid wrenched from her lips.

"You have a place, Midna. Among them, you have a place in this world. Somewhere to call home. With me, that's all shot. I can be nothing for you."

Midna clutched at her head, gritting her teeth, almost ripping disheveled strands out by the roots. She snarled at him, so utterly outraged she nearly couldn't see past her curtain of red hair.

"Get this through your thick skull, you _moron_ ," she fumed. "I don't _care_ about any of them. Not. A single. One."

She grabbed the collar of his tunic and jerked him forward so that they were nose to nose.

" _You're_ all that matters to me!" she growled.

As his eyes widened, she tightened her grip until green fabric had bunched under her nails.

"I've been alone, too. For practically ever. Even before you came to me and I knew what you were, that sword was my entire reason for being. For all my life, for better or worse, you were _all I had_."

She lowered him, his shirt still loosely dangled over her fingertips.

"Midna," he tried again. "I'm not like you, and try as I might, I know I'll never be. I'm the world's premier living hell. I'm selfish, and lost, and…and-"

"And you claim that _I_ give _myself_ too little credit," Midna chuckled bitterly. "Link, you _sit_ there and _listen_. My life's purpose just went kaput. Right now, I have nothing. Except you. They," she gestured vaguely behind her.

"Aren't going to do a thing for me."

Her gaze was furious, smoldering, and it swallowed him up like flames, like the molten furnace of a gaping earth, like the stars above and the gravel beneath. It brought ash to the mind. A promise to the tongue that floated like blood.

"I belong with _you_."

A single tear scrabbled its way desperately down Link's cheek.

"I'm sorry," Link whispered. "For your mother. For…everything. I'm so sorry my chest actually hurts. How can you…ever… _ever_...forgive me? How can anyone?"

He squeezed his eyes shut.

She crouched onto one knee – pale, sleek in the moonlight – and wasted no time, wrapping her arms around his neck, hugging him angrily as her ear brushed his.

"Like this, you idiot."

As Link's tears soaked her shoulder, Midna, for the first time in her life, knew forgiveness.

And it was alien to her – foreign and out of sorts and benign and malicious and the smallest spectacle yet the very seams of the cosmoses themselves – but so tinged with sweet that she didn't really mind.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Gah! Sorry again. Had a bit of trouble with this one to be honest. It's quite lengthy, isn't it? But I think I like how it came out. Bask in the feeeeeels.


	18. Power

Power

 _She ran one hand through her hair – caked with filth, marred with crusted blood – and slumped to her knees._

 _Her dress was tattered, her breaths ragged as they heaved her body, as shuddering sobs forced their way past cracked lips._

 _She heard movement, something other than the fires that splintered the air, or the empty, billowing wind that she so wished could just wipe the slate clean, erase the crimson skies, wash away the ruptured ground._

 _Drained of the will to fight, already little more than a rag doll sewn together from the feeblest semblances of life, she turned and saw him._

 _His face was solemn, and she could detect the traces of pain pushing against his eyes, almost no less piercing than hers._

 _Her gaze swept the field now, and there was nothing,_ _ **nothing,**_ _noth-_

" _You," her voice was swallowed by the barren gusts._

 _She clutched at her strands of dirty brown – indistinguishable from the grime – and realization struck her as she looked at him._

" _You,_ _ **you, YOU**_ _," she screamed, somehow mustering the strength to scrabble towards him. "It's all your fault! Everything is gone, everything is gone and it's all because of_ _ **you**_ _!"_

 _She dug her nails into his shoulders, and he didn't wince when she drew blood._

" _If only..." she seethed, hatred fanning out as breath and wafting in his face. "If only you'd never been_ _ **born**_ _."_

" _I want to help," he told her quietly. "Please let me."_

" _Help!" she screeched, a derisive laughter echoing across the expanse of unraveled corpses. "Help, help, you want to help?"_

 _She shoved him, still laughing, tears running down her cheeks, cleaving paths through dirt._

" _I despise you," she stared at his eyes, sunken with sorrow. "If it meant your death, I would kill myself right now if I could."_

 _Dark lips pressed into a thin line, and power stretched from end to end._

" _Understandable," he said. "But you don't want this to continue. I…"_

 _He paused. Bent to one knee._

" _Use me at your leisure. I am at your mercy."_

 _She spat in his face. Stood tall above him with the sun's red glare – seeped through dreary clouds – at her back._

 _Fists clenched, she spoke after a length._

 _"You will live at the castle with me. You will not leave my sight or I will have you thrown in the dungeons without a **second** thought and I won't look back."_

 _True to her word, she turned her back and didn't, as she held herself up and walked._

* * *

"We need them," Zelda placed a hand on his shoulder.

His fingers feathered their touch on hers.

"I know."

She sighed and kissed him.

"They won't take kindly to you, perhaps, but we have no choice."

"We're powerless," Ganondorf agreed.

The sun set, casting shadows across them both, across the ruined land all the way to the horizon, but they stood and watched it together.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** So this time I actually have an excuse, however feeble. My computer blew up, and it makes sense, it _has_ been like six years since I got it, but it was a bummer. Imagine my surprise when it actually turned on again and started working two days ago so I could get this chapter out. Needless to say, however, its time is at an end, and my new computer ships in about six-ish days. Oh boy!


	19. Letter

Letter

It was while they were aimless that they were granted aim.

"HEEEEEYYYYYYY!"

The deliberate, frantic padding of footsteps on paved road alerted them to the lanky, short-trousered man wheezing for breath as he tried to catch up. The wind nearly blew his red cap off, but he reached up with one spindly arm and held it secure.

"Wait…up…" he gasped.

They slowed to a halt, both wearing similarly bewildered expressions.

"I have…" he grasped his knees and bent over, ravenously gulping in air. "Your mail. Here."

Midna arched an eyebrow, but slowly accepted the white envelope.

He straightened, saluted them and smiled, exposing his crooked teeth.

"Well, my business here is concluded. Onward to mail!"

And he jogged away, huffing and puffing all the while.

Link stared at the lavish seal emblazoned on the front.

"Um," he tilted his head. "So who's it from?"

Midna shrugged and ripped it open.

She tugged the sheaf of parchment from its confines, and her eyes roved the page.

They widened, and she groaned.

"Shit."

"What is it?" he asked, attempting to peer over her shoulder.

She impatiently shoved the paper in his chest.

He gawked at the neat handwriting adorning the front of it.

Midna threw her hands up in the air.

"What do you even _say_ to people who try to pit you against each other in a _cave_?" she wondered loudly.

Link nodded, still a little incredulous.

"So, should we…go?"

Midna scoffed.

"Your call. Not like it was _me_ they were after."

"Well," Link said. "What's the worst they can do? Try to kill us?"

And Midna clutched her stomach as she laughed.

The very _idea_ of it!

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Whipped up a quickie for you guys! Sorry, I just had to have a cameo of the good ol' postman. Even in this bleak world, you can always count on him to stay jolly.


	20. Storm's Edge

Storm's Edge

"To _think_ ," Midna smirked ruefully. "We'd find ourselves back here so soon."

"I know I've asked this already, but are you _sure-_ "

"Link," she all but shoved him towards the familiar gilded door. "This is your choice, and I'll be damned if I get in the way."

She twisted the knob and dragged him in by the arm.

Zelda's first reaction was to blink, not quite comprehending the scene – or rather, the _people_ – before her eyes.

She inclined her head, however, ever the courteous host despite her bewilderment.

"If you're here to kill us," she spoke over the rim of her teacup, eyes a calm, stormy blue. "Be advised that we tend to scratch and bite."

She looked pointedly at Ganondorf, who let loose a deep-seated chuckle.

"Tempting," Midna drawled. "But not why we're here. Least, not _yet_. This is his show."

She nodded to Link, who gave them a bright smile. In the span of a second, the other three remembered what he was, and imagined the smile draped in a curtain of blood, a shower of stars, swathed in the embers of hell and the greenery of paradise all at once, and were at once taken aback and not surprised at all by the seeming sweetness of he who murdered in cold blood for so long and often.

"And where he goes," Midna elaborated, recovering instantly in the next moment. "I go. All there is to it."

"Uncanny, since you were just asking us to help kill him not too long ago," Ganondorf mused, a crinkle to the corner of his lips.

"And why should you be confused, anyway?" Midna asked, pointedly ignoring him and addressing Zelda. " _You're_ the ones who sent that letter. Or did some imposter falsify the royal seal? Wouldn't surprise me that your security's so lax."

"Oh, we sent it, yes," Zelda nodded pleasantly, placing her cup and saucer on Ganondorf's desk. "We just didn't think you would respond so quickly, if at all. Given the circumstances, of course."

"Like I said," Midna grunted. "Wasn't my call to make."

"Well," Link interjected. "As much fun it is to be teetering over whether or not any of us are out for blood, I'd…I'd like to hear about it. Why you need us."

"Because," Ganondorf sighed. "We don't make the cut. We've held off for years, but it's not going to be enough anymore. Our ordinary means, that is. We need the extraordinary, and the only ones in the world who fit that criteria are you two."

"Why now?" Link prompted as he twiddled his fingers almost nervously.

"Our worst fears have been confirmed. The Goddesses are returning, and this time we'll be wiped out without question unless a miracle occurs," Ganondorf stood with his arms folded behind him. "And the closest thing to a miracle we have are the very weapons once used to decimate us."

"You think we're gonna answer your every beckon like lapdogs?" Midna snapped. "You've used me once. Come hell or high water, it won't happen again."

"We never aimed to use you," Zelda said softly. "And if it seemed that way, it'll be because we were desperate. Do you not understand?"

And she fixed them with her maelstrom of blue, of deep sorrow that had traveled along her bones to get there.

"You are all we have left. All anyone has left. Any feeble, flickering hopes that humanity has remaining die with you."

Midna was struck silent, but Link, ever the ray of bloodied sunshine, stood stalwart.

"When?" he ventured, because acquiesce or not, they at least needed to know.

"It's already started," Ganondorf rumbled. "Their first assaults. In a small, backwater region called Outset."

And his blood drained from his face, and Midna turned to him in concern of what was wrong, or perhaps to ask what he's decided, but he knew that his convictions mattered little at this point, because his decision had already been made for him.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** AHHHHHHH, I'M SORRRYYYYY, it's been a month, and ohmygoodness what. To all of you who've been waiting, I feel like I've let you down in some small way. Not many stupid excuses this time around. Part of it was that I had trouble with this chapter and the direction of the story in general, part of it was because of the transition to my new laptop (I've received it and it's working great, woohoo!). So yeah, it's just me being a total bummer. Promise I won't leave you hanging like this in the future if I can help it! Please, review? I hope that at the very least the chapter was up to par.


	21. Homecoming

Homecoming

He felt like his heart had been shoved ruthlessly into his throat as he surveyed the village. It barely held semblance to anything more than rubble. Roofs were caved in; the ground had been serrated against itself, uneven and gouged along its rims.

"You needn't worry yet," Ganondorf, strangely, reassured from behind him. "It's only been golems thus far. That much Zelda and I can, and have, held at bay. It looks bad, perhaps, but no one's really been hurt. It's for what comes next that we need the two of you."

He was startled, almost alarmed, by Zelda's hand on his shoulder.

"We'll leave you to your personal business for now, so we can prepare the rest of our forces. We will offer what we have left to help, but when the next attack comes, whatever we muster will most likely be nothing but distracting fodder."

 _Everything is up to you,_ she didn't have to say.

Zelda's fingers ghosted past Link's shoulders as the two leaders left them; vanished as if they were wisps of the dead.

Midna looked at him, lips pursed. Reached down and tangled their fingers.

"Let's go," she whispered.

So they did.

* * *

She had made to brush aside a blonde, unruly strand from across her eyes, but froze midway.

The pot of water she had been carrying shattered against the gravel floor.

Link smiled part sheepishly, part dreadfully, part lovingly, and everything in between.

"Hey," his voice trembled. "I…I…"

When Aryll punched him, it took him by surprise. Not because of the punch itself – he deserved that and so much more and thus saw it coming before he even stepped foot in Outset – but because of how much force it carried.

Aryll's anger radiated power, yet when he last left her as a little girl, she was untarnished sweetness incarnate.

"A-Aryll, I know you must be…must be furious…" he attempted as he touched a hand to his rapidly swelling cheek.

"You come back," her voice was low, deadly, seething but controlled, if barely. "After years and _years_ of not a single breath of your whereabouts and _only_ , let me guess, because of the mess we're in-"

"I know," he tried again. "You have every right to…to hate me with every fiber of your being, to want me dead, I'm the reason mom and dad and so many others are gone-"

"You think _that's_ what this is about?" she hissed. "We could've talked it through, we _would_ have, I _know_ you better than anyone! But you left. You _left_ us without a word before we could even try!"

He stood there, rooted to the spot, unable to offer anything.

"You weren't here for Grandma's funeral," Aryll told him solemnly, as his head shot up, eyes wide with shocked despair. "She didn't get to see your face one last time, even though that's all she wanted."

"Aryll," he clenched and unclenched his fists, at a loss. "I can't…I don't even know where to begin…"

But she launched herself at him and flung her arms around his neck, and her body broke down in sobs that swept his pace up in hers, racked his frame just as they did hers, and it was the last thing he expected.

But he gazed at her, saw her lower lip tremble, saw her eyes shimmer, wide and fathomless and pure, and no matter how things were or changed, she was that same girl again, innocence immovable.

"Stupid brother," she whispered. "I missed you so… _so much_. So much."

And oh, he knew. He knew how little he deserved it, but Aryll was _Aryll_ , and she had forgiven him so instantly and the tears couldn't help themselves.

"I'm sorry, Aryll," he said as he held her tighter. "I love you."

"You always were a crybaby," Aryll smiled, even as her own cheeks were wet.

"Tell me about it," Midna finally interjected with a smile of her own.

Aryll swiveled to her with wide eyes.

"Oh, please excuse my rudeness, I didn't realize – Oh my god. You're…a girl."

"Uh. Last I checked," Midna raised a brow.

"Brother brought home a _girl_?" Aryll gaped, letting go of Link and nearly squealing with ill-concealed glee. "Are you his girlfriend?! Please say yes."

" _What_?" Midna blushed. "No, of course n-"

She paused.

"Well," she amended after a moment of contemplation. "I mean…sort of? I guess the issue never really came up."

This time Aryll really did squeal.

Link, also blushing, laughed quietly nonetheless.

"Sorry I took so long, 'Sis."

And Aryll grinned so wide her jaw threatened to split apart at the seams. She happily tasted salt.

"Welcome home, you moron."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Is that enough fluff for you insatiable monkeys?! Felt weirdly rushed towards the end, but I figure you guys are too busy letting Aryll give you diabetes to care. More to come!


	22. Respite

Respite

"So how did you two meet?" Aryll beamed, her teeth gleaming pearly white in the glow of the hearth. "I'll bet it was _inordinately_ romantic."

She sighed dreamily.

"Well, uh," Midna coughed from her position on the couch. "If you'd count your brother trying to kill me as romantic, then sure."

" _Link!_ " Aryll reprimanded, aghast. "You didn't!"

"Did you have to bring that up? It was a difficult time," he groaned. "I mean, you were trying to kill _me_ this whole time too."

"Nuh-uh," Midna smirked, amused. "That was when I didn't know _you_ were the ancient murderous blade I've been after my whole life."

"B-But, come on, look!" he fumbled with the edges of his tunic. "It all worked out, didn't it? I took one look and immediately put aside my plans for killing you!"

He grimaced as even _he_ subsequently realized how that sounded.

"Charming," Midna scoffed, though it was not without trace amounts of exasperated affection.

"Ugh," Aryll shook her head. "I hope you can forgive him, Miss Midna. My brother can be such a _dork_ sometimes."

"I've noticed," she drily remarked. "He's the biggest dunce I know, but I guess I'm stuck with him."

"You two are a riot," Link grumbled, turning so that he wouldn't have to face them. "Let me go get the tea and cookies so you can bond over them."

"Oh, I'll do it!" Aryll chirped, ignoring his sarcasm and practically skipping over to the kitchen.

Beams of moonlight streamed in from the splintered roof, striking Midna's hair so that it gleamed scarlet like a rivulet of blood.

"Snark," she nodded at him, grinning. "I'm so proud of you."

"You're rubbing off on me," he sighed. "I'm not sure that's a good thing."

"Well, your sister sure seems to love me," she sniffed, folding her arms.

"How could she not?" Link shrugged. "You're you."

She went red.

"That's-" she spluttered, her throat catching midway. "Not fair. Saying something like that out of the blue."

The warm scent of jasmine wafted towards them and drew their attention to Aryll, who had lingered at the threshold to the kitchen. She bit her lip, clearly attempting not to interrupt, despite her eyes swimming with ill-concealed delight.

"Here!" she blurted, thrusting the tea under their noses, retreating to the kitchen when they had each taken a saucer.

"She's always been easily excitable," Link noted.

"Must run in the family," Midna quipped. "I can tell she really missed you."

"If I'd realized," he began, a somber tone seeping into his edges. "Maybe I could've saved her some grief. Maybe I could've come back sooner and fixed things-"

"Oh my god, I've always _wanted_ a sister!" echoed Aryll's shriek from the kitchen.

Link choked on his tea.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** A little reprieve from all the doom and gloom! It's kinda all over the place, and that's sort of intentional, sort of not. A part of it was to show just how much Midna's softened up from traveling with Link (I hope she's not too OOC, ogod). Hopefully it didn't come off as too stale!


	23. Compassion

Compassion

 _Her fury was enough to cow even him, but on this matter he stood stalwart._

" _How dare you," she snarled, lines of contempt stark against her pale skin. "How_ _ **dare**_ _you. Do you have any idea what you've done, the_ _ **fear**_ _you're going to inspire in my populace, you miserable-"_

" _Then you mean to continue on as you have?" he retorted, voice finally raised amidst her endless torrent of abuse, eyes finally meeting hers in defiance after months and months of quietly receiving her hatred._

 _She blinked, surprised._

" _I know," he gritted his teeth. "That I do not have the best track record, and I know that you do not, perhaps will never, trust me. I deserve everything you've slung at me and more, but are you going to lose your_ _ **head**_ _, needlessly sacrifice_ _ **lives**_ _, because you cannot see past your scorn for me?"_

" _My 'scorn,'" she narrowed her eyes. "Has nothing to do with it. The very same golems that have terrorized us for so long, fighting alongside us? Only someone like_ _ **you**_ _would think of something so sinister. This ancient magic you've evoked will bring us nothing but ruin."_

" _If you hadn't noticed by now, dear princess," Ganondorf lowered his head in defeat, the power in his dark eyes wilting. "We are already in ruin. Wars are not won by being picky. What strength we can find, we must imbibe."_

" _Spoken like a true tyrant," Zelda said coldly._

 _Ganondorf's countenance, always pristine, always a paragon of silent strength, shattered. "You," he mumbled. "Will never trust me? Never forgive me?"_

 _She faltered, but brushed it off easily in the next moment._

" _Don't hold your breath."_

* * *

 _Great Fairies, giggling madly, eyes leering red, tossed their magic like bombs as they advanced. Lanayru's coils struck out at hapless soldiers, splitting their heads open against scorched stone. Its fangs of light darted forward, impaling golem and human alike._

 _At their fore, still hardly a child, was the Master Sword._

 _Zelda notched another arrow, gulping in what breath she could, dirt crusting her gloves, blood mingling with sweat, when something caught her eye._

" _Marin," she whispered, twisting in place and helplessly sprinting towards the gate. "Marin!"_

 _The little girl stared wide-eyed at the Master Sword surging towards her, its young eyes devoid of mercy, of intention, of will, of heart._

" _ **No!**_ _" Zelda screamed, a hand outstretched as a rock snagged her dress and she fell to her knees. "Please, not her! Anyone but-"_

 _The sheen of metal burned her eyes like the sun, and when the blinding flash dissipated, she saw the Master Sword's arm gleaming crimson._

 _But when she heard Marin's voice-_

" _Mister!" the girl cried. "Mister, you're bleeding!"_

 _Ganondorf cracked a weary smile, his teeth softly clenched against the agony._

" _It's alright. Just a scratch. Run along, now."_

" _But-"_

" _I'll be right after you, promise."_

 _The girl nibbled her finger, but nodded, tearing grass in her haste to find sanctuary behind the gate._

 _Zelda drew closer, and as she saw the lump on the ground, she drew a sharp breath._

" _Now," Ganondorf said even as beads of sweat streamed down his jaw. "Are you really going to continue, even after that?"_

 _The Master Sword blinked, and looked down at its chest. It stared, as if noticing the large, gaping wound for the first time._

 _Ganondorf smirked, raising his remaining hand, soaked in the blade's blood._

" _Don't know what mental faculties are left available to you," Ganondorf panted, the pain starting to seize at him. "But surely even_ _ **you**_ _would want to recuperate after sustaining an injury of that magnitude."_

 _The blade, as expected, said nothing, but jerked its head, and the Goddesses' forces bent to his will. True to Ganondorf's word, they retreated._

" _Good…riddance," he uttered, his eyes rolling up to the back of his head. Before he fainted, he could have sworn he heard a concerned voice calling his name._

* * *

" _Why," Zelda asked, perched at his bedside. "Did you do that?"_

 _Ganondorf groaned, clutching lightly at his stump of a right arm._

" _No faith wasted on me, I see," he chuckled without humor. "I need some sort of ulterior motive? Would that set your mind at ease, your world upright once again?"_

" _No, I," Zelda bit her lip. "That's not what I meant."_

" _Usually, it is," he muttered bitterly. "If you're done here, I'd like to rest in peace. You can go back to loathing my very existence tomorrow."_

" _Ganondorf," her mouth was dry, unexpectedly desperate. "I…"_

" _Just spit it out, Zelda," he told her wearily. "Please. Just leave me be."_

 _Her eyes glistened, but she scooted closer._

" _The girl you saved," she began. "Is my daughter. Not by blood or anything, but my daughter all the same. The war has left many children without homes or families, forced to fend for themselves, fearing that every moment might be their last. I happened upon Marin, and you could say it was love at first sight. I knew that if nothing else in this miserable world, I could be the mother she deserved."_

 _Ganondorf was silent, but Zelda thought that it might have been his way to telling her to continue._

" _She is…all I have left," Zelda nearly sobbed. "She's more precious to me than anything."_

 _Silence, once again, reigned._

 _But she could not leave it like_ _ **this**_ _, at the very least._

" _Thank you, Ganondorf."_

 _It wasn't a reconciliation, but it was a start._

* * *

"You know," Zelda mused. "You don't have to keep hiding it every time we meet with him."

Ganondorf glanced briefly beneath his cloak, to empty socket where his right arm should be.

"He has enough to feel guilty over."

Zelda smiled as she walked through the castle gates.

"You," she teased. "Are nothing but a big softie."

He scoffed, turning away to hide the slight tinge of red across the bridge of his nose.

"Let's just hurry so we can head back to Outset with the troops."

Before Zelda could reply, a bundle of blurry red careened into her arms.

"Mom! You're back!"

"Marin!" Zelda gently pried the teenager to arms' length. "You couldn't have waited another minute?"

Ganondorf bent down to brush aside wisps of scarlet, tucking them behind Marin's ear.

Marin grinned, widely, as he silently fussed over her.

"I heard you two flirting as you were coming in, by the way," she quipped cheekily. "Why don't you just marry mom already, Mr. Ganondorf? Not as if you don't already act the part."

Ganondorf spluttered, and Marin's grin stretched even further as she contemplated being one of only two people in existence who could bring the great warlord to his knees.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** This is the longest one in a while! I figured it acts sort of as a parallel to Link and Midna's big turning point; let Gan and Zel show off their pivotal moments, y'know? You guys finally get a few details on just what they've been fighting all this time, as well. On another note, I never actually played Link's Awakening, so I almost feel like I don't deserve to use Marin as a character, but she sort of fit the role, so, there you go. Looot of happiness in recent chapters, huh? Is it already time to ruin it? *cackle*

Review? It would really make my day!


	24. Onset

Onset

"You don't have to go."

Aryll fidgeted with her blouse.

Link offered her a smile, though it wasn't easy.

"Aryll," his fingers splayed themselves mildly against her cheek, jostling strands of gold. "My life has been one abominable, ceaseless cycle. I've done many, many horrible things."

His gaze meandered towards Midna, where he let it linger.

"And up until recently, I never thought I could forgive myself for a single one of them," he said, looking again towards his sister. "Most unforgiveable of all, however, was my cowardice. Every family I've torn apart, every life I've extinguished stayed with me like a curse. The past clung to me like a skeleton, and it was a terrible sort of limbo I lived, unable to let it go yet never fit to face it."

"I was…" he took a deep breath. "I was always running, running, _running_ away, and I never stopped. Until I met Midna. She's…She's shown me what courage looks like, Aryll. If I were to turn a blind eye even _now_ , in the face of her selflessness, then I'll have proven how truly irredeemable I've become."

He smiled.

"And I still haven't forgiven myself. But Midna's got that covered, too. Wait for me, okay? I won't leave you by yourself this time."

Aryll buried her face in his chest, nearly dizzied by the scent of pine and fresh gravel.

"It's a promise," came her muffled assent.

"Not to worry," A pale hand came from behind and ruffled her sun-starched locks. "I'm with him every step of the way."

"Thank you, Miss Midna," Aryll mumbled, fists still clenching green.

* * *

Perched atop the cliff, elbow propped against his raised knee, Link peered listlessly into the dying sun. The froth of crimson bloomed against the horizon, stretched across the sunken landscape like red silk, like a curtain of blood.

Link saw to its descent, saw the scarlet grin simmer against the skyline until there was hardly anything left but scattered blotches of color.

When darkness fell, and daylight's vestiges faded at last, he stood.

"What a night for it, huh?" he asked without turning his head.

"I don't see anything special about it," she replied.

"Well, at least I'm not alone."

Midna scoffed, and he grinned at such a familiar noise.

"I'm not so great."

"I disagree."

"Well, _obviously_ , if that rubbish you fed your sister is any indication."

"You were pleased, don't deny it."

"I didn't."

They were quiet for a precious few moments.

"Midna," he took her hand. "I'm glad you're here with me."

"It's time, so save the sap. But…ditto."

They nodded to each other and leapt off the cliff as one, as the army of mangled light, twisted laughter, breathing stone, divinity itself warped feral, screamed towards them.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Sorry yet again for a rather lengthy wait! Had a little trouble wrangling up the next portions of the story; they were sort of unruly. Merry belated Christmas! I hope everyone's holidays were a blast! Maybe I could get some reviews in my stocking…? Heheh.


	25. Battleborn

Battleborn

"By the way," Midna surged ahead of him. "It's probably too late to ask this now, but are you sure you're up to this? This is different from a couple of lumbering stones."

"Are you serious?" Link laughed, incredulous, as he kept stride precisely a few paces behind.

"Can't hurt to make sure," she shrugged, ducking underneath lucent tendrils. "Besides, if you think about it, you haven't ever _really_ shown me you can fight."

Link snorted even as his grin gleamed.

"Is that a challenge?"

"Oh, wipe that shit-eating smirk off your mug," her hair bloomed red, diverted into a million spikes, bolted in every direction. "I'm mostly joking. But _sure_ , asshole. Why don't you show me what you can do?"

Moonlight struck the forest of hair as fairies' blood glistened and dyed the strands further crimson. Link laughed right alongside the ebbing screeches of the slaughtered, their crumpled wings fluttering weakly to a standstill.

"I'm not proud of it or anything," his smile was tinged with sorrow. "But let me remind you. There's a reason I'm public enemy number one."

He poised his hand like a cleaver and drove it into the ground.

A strange sort of quiet pervaded the battlefield before his attack manifested. Gargantuan pillars of light split the earth, tore it apart like worn parchment, and the agony of every creature caught up in it reverberated across the canyon.

"Show-off," Midna muttered.

"You asked," Link chuckled, shrugging.

Luminescent spirits shrieked towards them, but Link twisted his arm in their direction and cleaved them in two without batting an eye.

"It's not over by any means," he nodded at her. "What they can conjure up is endless."

"Yeah, we can't be at this forever," Midna agreed, welding her hair into countless, vast rose-tinged fists.

"That," boomed a voice from atop the cliff they left behind. "Is where we come in."

Behind Ganondorf stood a legion. Soldiers, of both rock and flesh.

Zelda stepped to the precipice alongside him.

"This is our call to arms," she said, her gloved fingers lifting her solemn sword skyward.

She fixed the battlefield with her gaze of storms, of seething blue and roaring din.

"And _their_ reckoning."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Oh boy, action! Who doesn't love a good dollop of action? What d'you reckon, think they have a good chance? *grin*


	26. Tidal

**Author's Note:** I am scum. I deserve to be stuffed in a beehive.

* * *

Tidal

" _We_ will occupy their armies as best we can, for however long we can!" Ganondorf roared above the din. " _You_ must slip past and find the source of the madness, otherwise the end of it will never be in sight!"

"And what source would that be?" Link shouted back, even as his elbow jutted out the back of a deranged forest wraith, his tunic smeared further dark.

"The Goddesses themselves," Zelda responded as she leapt down from her perch, movements a placid stream of water as her blade calmly descended upon a raging Korok, severing its spinal cord. "Nobody knows what they look like or how they'll appear to us, but they _must_ have some corporeal medium from which to control this chaos. And-"

In a single, fluid motion, she dropped her sword, notched an arrow, swiveled on the spot and sent it soaring. Metal crunched bone, deafening, as it gouged a fairy's neck, even as Zelda's practiced fingers traveled smoothly along oak limb and worn bowstring, slinging the weapon back over her shoulder.

"And they'll have to be close, to have orchestrated this," she went on. "Continue past the battle to the other side of the valley. That's where they must be, inhabiting whatever vessels they'll have taken as their form."

"Roger that, pumpkin," came Midna's chortle. "Should be a snap. We'll be back in time for soup and biscuits."

Zelda nonchalantly slammed her heel onto the hilt of her sword, its silver sheen once flat against the gravel, now twirling in the air, the blood spackling its surface catching the glimmers of surrounding warfare like some sordid circus baton. She catches it with the ease of a performer so doubtlessly well-versed in her devastating art.

"Only if you're alright with dirty silverware," Zelda mutters in response, tossing her blade behind her without looking. "As always, _someone_ neglected to do his share of chores before we left."

Ganondorf seamlessly seizes it out of the air and proceeds to cleave a screeching skull-kid limb from limb.

"I think they're already gone, Zelda."

"I know. I was mostly talking to you."

"Tell me it makes any sense at all to do dishes before the battle of the century."

"Tell _me_ it makes any sense that a man can be so disgusting. Don't be a pig."

"Ouch. That really hits home, you know."

She rolled her eyes, reached behind her and stole back her sword, cutting down a pair of golems with such brutal efficiency that Ganondorf visibly recoiled.

"I've mentioned how truly, truly frightening you are, right?"

"What was that, dear?" she spoke without turning, a dagger held cheerfully behind her to the back of his neck, tickling trimmed crimson.

"Nothing," he stands there, his back to hers, and they are the eye of the storm. "I said nothing."

"Mm-hm," she stands there, her back to his, and they are the calm at the helm of bedlam. "That's what I thought."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Hi. Ummmmmmmm, been a while.

Trying to get back in the swing of things, so please don't throw stuff at me :(

Nobody panic, the story's alive and kicking! Even though it's been like three months and ohmygodIAMTHEWORST.

I swear, more to come! …Leave a review? If, you know, you're still around.


	27. One's Default

One's Default

Link actually felt his brain rattle and his heart constrict when he spotted the tuft of blonde hair amidst the bloodbath.

" _Aryll?!_ What the f-"

He scrubbed hard at his eyes, just to make sure, because it simply was _not possible_ , ludicrous didn't begin to _cover_ it-

But he screeched to a halt, his boots tearing gravel, and Midna glanced quizzically backwards.

"Link!" she gasped, clutching at her chest, her little blue dress somehow _pristine_ of all things, something else clearly impossible in this battlefield. "I've…I've finally found you. I-"

" _What are you doing here?"_ he seethed, a tick away from exploding, and Midna noticed it was the second time she had seen him angry.

Outrage was a better term for it, she mused.

"I can't," he shook his head, still incredulous. "I can't even believe – I don't know what to…"

Midna reached them, placing a hand on his trembling shoulder.

"How did you even _get_ here?" he hissed.

"I…I ran after you when you left, and I met Miss Zelda just now. She wasn't very happy I was here either, but she cleared a path for me anyway and told me where you went."

"Oh, _not very happy_ , yeah, that about covers it," Link breathed through his nose, teeth clenched against the fury lapping at his shores. "Aryll, have you any idea what coming after us would be like? The kind of _danger_ you've put yourself in? This isn't a game!"

"Link," she bristled, fistfuls of blue wrinkling the hem of her dress, her nose upturned defiantly. "I know it's been a while for you, but I'm not a little girl anymore. It's hardly fair, since I've been taking care of myself for years after you were gone. I realized,"

She bit her lip and switched grips, nails now clutching green as she tugged herself closer.

"I realized, as I saw your back getting smaller in the distance, that I would be a fool to let you leave again without me. I've…I've lost you once, and it was horrible. You're all I have left. I'm coming with you, with or without your permission."

"Aryll, how can I _protect_ you if you come waltzing into the most vicious hellhole the world over? I still can't believe you got here unscathed."

"Well, you're just going to have to. What better way than sticking with me?"

Link opened his mouth, clearly not ready to concede the point, but Midna interrupted.

"I'm as surprised as you are, Link, but I don't think we have a choice. We've come too far to go back now, so we're just going to have to bring her with us. It's not like we can leave her to fend for herself."

Aryll nearly recoiled under Link's towering, steel-strung glare. Nearly.

After a length, he spoke quietly. A simmering, ruthless sort of silence.

"You will not move two inches without either Midna or myself escorting you. You will do whatever it is we tell you to do. And so help me, if you try to help us fight, I am not above hauling you all the way back to Outset myself."

Aryll nodded quickly, not daring to say anything further.

"Then that settles it," Midna almost wanted to laugh.

It wasn't long ago that she happened upon a man deranged in his happiness, irreverent to the point of disbelief, so derailed from the beaten track she couldn't have begun to guess at the grief he had shoved far beneath his heart.

Now would have seemed so impossible. Grumbles frittering under his breath, that same man marched ahead of them, fingertips barbed for battle, head hung low in chagrin.

"C'mon," Midna slung an arm around the girl, amused. "Best keep your distance while he's brooding."

Aryll's eyes were wide.

"Is he always this moody?"

This time, Midna really did laugh.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Within the week?! I'm a god. (I'm actually sewage) Let's see how long I can keep it up..?..!


	28. The Beast Harkens

The Beast Harkens

"Tell me if you're fatigued," he rumbled. "We have to ration our strength if we're to hold out for very long."

"Please," she blew aside a snarl of dangling auburn. "This is nothing. We've been through worse."

"Sad to say we have," he nodded, bones crunching under his boot as the shrieks of the dying droned around them, a wretched chorus.

"I wonder-" Light barreled towards her, mildly cutting her off as she evaded. "If Link's sister found him alright."

"You made sure of it, didn't you?" Ganondorf grunted, heaving a lucent behemoth – bright as the stars, terrible like splintered moonbeams, girth of a mountain – across the canyon through strength alone.

"But imagine a girl like her alone in the center of this madness. Imagine if it was Mari-"

Speak of the devil, and he doth appear.

" _Mom_!" a voice desperately gasped.

Something inside Zelda plummeted.

"Mom, where…where are you?" it sobbed, and the words seemed to crawl along Zelda's consciousness, drag itself amidst murky perception.

"No," Zelda whispered, eyes frantically searching the valley. "No, she can't be here, she can't-"

And she spotted her. Clothes frayed, crimson curls singed at the tips, the girl's body limping with the weight of exhaustion as it descended the cliffside.

Gold-rimmed serpents spiraled from either side, fangs bared.

But for a flash, and Zelda was upon them. Fragments of the hapless creatures lay cold and dead before they withered into nothing.

Curled against her lap was Marin, hardly conscious.

"Mom…" she croaked, soot across the crease of her brow. "You're here…"

"Yes, I'm here," Zelda soothed, a hitch to her voice. "I'm here, and I won't let anything happen to you."

"The…The castle," Marin coughed. "There was an attack when you were away, and we…we didn't stand a chance. I w-wanted to stay and help, but the guards told me – They told me to run and never look back."

Zelda peered over the canyon wall and sure enough, she could barely make out a trail of smoke wafting lazily skyward where her castle once was. Thoughts of her home, gone forever - her people, left to die at the mercy of monsters - pervaded her mind, but she forced herself to squash them down.

She gave Marin a trembling smile as she stroked her cheek with the back of her fingers.

"Bless them," she murmured. "For saving your life. Ganondorf-"

She looked around for him, unusually panicked, her composure dashed to slivers.

But he was there. A dark hand, steady and warm, against her shoulder.

She grabbed it with her free hand, drawing comfort, breathing his immovable presence.

"Ganondorf, I-I know we can't just leave the troops to defend the valley on their own, but…"

"No," he shook his head. "The world can wait. Tend to Marin. I'll manage things until you're ready."

Heat, slick and welling, bloomed against her chest, and suddenly she found it quite hard to breathe and her grip against his hand tightened like a vice, something within her ruptured-

"I love you," she blurted.

He blinked. Never before had she told him aloud.

"As for my end, it goes without saying," he grinned.

She hugged him desperately once, and he turned his back, waltzing onto the arena, head scraping the sky, single arm poised for triumph and death all at once, a galaxy at each blood-spackled fingertip.

And he was a gladiator. He never forgot that, first and foremost, carnage was his trade.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Some sweetness among the chaos! I'm such a sucker for fluff. Review? :]

If you please.


	29. World's End

World's End

He planted his boot and moved no further. The earth was warm, worn, pliant, but motionless.

"We should have been there by now."

"How are you so sure?" Midna frowned.

"It's been so long since we've left the canyon," Link gestured in a frenzy. "By now we're nearing that village we once passed."

Faint memories of moonlight and forgiveness thrummed quietly behind her eyes and she felt them, soft as silk.

"Well, yeah. I guess."

"It's – it's weird, isn't it?" he insisted. "Zelda said these vessels had to be close to the chaos, else they'd have no control over the madness going on."

Midna peered at their surroundings. No longer was it dark, gone were the desolate crags and trampled grounds. She looked up; the sky – placid, pale, blue – stared back.

She noticed Link fidgeting, fingers coiling against themselves, voice contorted in a low mumble. Aryll at his elbow, eyes swimming with worry.

"You're right," And he was. Her veins boiled with it. How wrong it was. Her instinct was screaming, seething, and though the air was clean, the soil unmarred, it was all rotten. "Something's up."

A head of red bobbed into view, cutting across the horizon where blue met with dust and drooping grass.

"What?" Midna rubbed at her eye. "You're-"

"Oh! Goodness!"

* * *

The once-perhaps-always King of Evil was no stranger to defeat. Time and again he would have his ambitions ground to a halt, time and again the kingdoms he toppled would rise and greet him with his own failure, would pin him betwixt heroic steel, would tower above him with the princess' solemn, unending triumph; her cold, merciless wisdom that scraped the heavens.

He recognized nothing if not his own limits. He knew he had already, dangerously crossed them long ago.

Breath haggard, knuckles bloodied, jaw brutal yet broken, eyes sunken yet fierce. Living on less than a prayer.

Light cackled towards him, split his chest, splintered his back against the ashen wall. He mustered mites of his remaining, feeble strength and crushed it beneath his palm.

When Zelda couldn't take much more and made towards him, tears running freely, stance prepared for death together with him, he shook his head.

"Stay…back," blood spackled the gravel amidst every word. "Protect…Marin."

"No, I can't just leave you to your-" she broke off, gait trembling even as she tore spirits asunder, arm huddled around Marin even as she looked hopelessly towards him.

"I'll live…yet," he smiled. "When have I ever…stayed dead?"

She returned it, despite herself. Despair wrote itself into each corner of her lips.

"You're a never ending pain in my ass, that's for sure," she said, tears mingling with her smile.

Where once the battlefield was a storm, now not much remained but a muted sort of hell, the kind that paints the earth a quiet red. Darkness had swallowed the bodies of the fallen, had welcomed the gentle river of blood into its confines until they blended so closely it was impossible to tell one from the other.

Of the original regiment, less than a quarter had lasted.

At the slaughter's aftermath, Ganondorf stumbled silently to his feet and gazed towards the sky. Blackened. Charred. He found no hint of the stars, but he told himself they were still there.

* * *

"Anju?!"

"M-Miss Midna? What are you doing out here?"

The feeling of dread only waxed greater, and Midna almost clutched at her heart.

Her eyes darted from Anju's astonished expression to Link, who simply stood there, as confused as she was.

* * *

Ganondorf happened to catch a glimpse of Marin, still curled against Zelda. And he thought-

He thought to himself-

* * *

"The reason," Midna muttered to herself. "The reason, the reason, the reason, the _reason_ we're out here so far and still _nothing-_ "

Link unconsciously clutched Aryll tighter to himself as he tried to make sense of Midna's garble.

* * *

And it was just a fleeting thought – just for a moment, he wondered – and…

And it was such a small thing, but it started growing, taking form until finally he had doubt – how _could_ he, he berated himself, didn't he _trust_ her?

But the more he observed, the more he couldn't let it go.

* * *

Midna scolded herself for daring to even _entertain_ such a horrid notion. But-

"Link," she asked slowly. "It was seventeen years ago, right? That…that the Goddesses turned mad."

"Um, yeah. Seventeen."

Again, she hated herself. But she had to make sure. So she steeled herself and continued.

* * *

Marin's clothes were frayed, burnt, blackened with soot, in complete disrepair.

And he loved Marin, he did. He wished all the happiness in the world for her and nothing less. But how could she possibly, _possibly_ have not a scratch on her? And while he was torturing himself with the idea, he might as well ask the rest.

"How did she outrun the Goddesses' creatures all the way here?" he whispered.

* * *

 _They chose Outset as the first site of attack the **chances** of that happening we couldn't find a trace of them this entire way she chose to come with us she chose to we've walked so far and **nothing** seventeen years seventeen **years**_

"How old is Aryll?" she whispered, as if afraid to disturb something.

Link frowned.

"Seventeen years old. Why?"

* * *

He felt it first rather than saw it. The growing, bulbous cone of light. A drop of color amidst the darkness.

" _Zelda!_ " he screamed, tearing across the canyon to reach her. " _ **RUN!**_ _"_

Zelda reacted to his hoarse voice on instinct, and darted to the side as the world of darkness erupted into blue.

The force of it careened her into his body, and together they tumbled along the floor, a mess of blood and fabric and dirt.

* * *

"Link!" she hastily tugged him out of reach and leaped back as far as she could muster.

"Midna, what are you-"

But his voice was swallowed by the roaring winds as the air was rent with fire.

Gales tore the road to ribbons as magma covered the land and sent itself soaring.

Red blinded him. His vision blurred green.

* * *

Marin – but not her at all – floated before them, eyes brimmed with lightning, shoulders hunched with infinite knowledge, fingers swathed with wisps of insurmountable divinity and not a mote of sanity.

* * *

Demons masquerading as girls, parading their brazen power before them, and all Link could do was stare.

Stare at the crimson mass of power that most certainly was _not_ his sister.

Their manic giggles snapped him back to reality.

"Anju" raised a finger and wagged it, idly brushing aside strands of green.

"Ready or not," she sang, voice so beautiful it sent him chills.

It was deranged just how impossibly beautiful they both were.

"Here," the monster wearing Aryll's face crooned.

"We," She twirled in place, her hair engulfing her like a red, bloody veil.

"Come!"

Far from light, far from darkness, they learned that day that Hell came in colors.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Hahaha I'm trash

Man, it's a been a while. It's just life getting in the way as usual, so don't worry, I'm still on this like butter on toast! Hopefully you guys are still enjoying it hehe ogod why am I so awful

I figured that since I was gone so long you guys deserved a doozy. And what a doozy it was, eh? I'm hoping some things from previous chapters are falling into place. I've been building towards this for a while now, so hopefully it came across well. Wow I use that word a lot. Hopefully hopefully hopefully hopefully hopefully.

Please review?! :D


	30. Heaven on Earth

**Author's Note:** Shocker, I'm not dead. Been a good a while and a half, eh? Pls don't maim me

* * *

Heaven on earth

"But…I don't understand."

Link saw but did not believe.

His hope-deprived abject confusion didn't even have the remote courtesy of leaving him slack-jawed. He trembled mutely, mouth moving but useless. Eyes wide yet unseeing.

"What's not to get?" Aryll – Link scrabbled at his head, tearing his gaze away, refusing refusing _refusing_ – giggled.

Every word was bladed torture. Every curve of her lips hot wax seething on his spine, every sharp hitch of laughter black soot in his lungs.

Midna, as ever, was his ground.

"She isn't herself," her whisper grazed the shell of his ear. Her hand warm and steady against his elbow, whereas every other part of him stilled, cold and lifeless.

"But what's wrong?" Aryll's voice came to him like birdsong; liquid, melodic, something saccharine to swallow. "I'm your _darling_ sister."

"You're not," he croaked. "You're something else."

" _That_ is _so_ terrible of you to say," she affected a whimper. "My heart's in pieces."

Midna stood protectively in front.

"Quit the charade. We've been sick of you dangling strings on us since day one. It's time this ended."

Aryll glanced helplessly towards her companion, eyes watering.

Fat tears trailed her chin, resembled blood as they ensconced themselves in her curtain of red.

"Oh, it really is, isn't it?" she cried, musically frantic.

Anju rose a finger and tenderly wiped away the moisture gathering at her corners.

"One way or another," Anju gently crooned. "We'll save them, sister. We will."

* * *

Marin snapped her fingers and blue brimmed the canyon.

Every remaining solder collapsed to the gravel, unmoving. Their hearts, quiet. Their chests, a myriad of hollowed synapses.

Against the mountain wall, their leaders could only stare.

"They're not…" Zelda's whisper drummed against the expanse, deafening where before all had been muted.

"Well, yes. Of course they're dead," Marin explained, gesturing as if it were a lecture.

"Why was there need?" Ganondorf rasped as best he could above the pain.

"To impress upon you beyond your misconceptions that there is no fight," Marin inclined her head almost kindly. "I am the law, you see. I always have been. In the wake of my absence came the two of you: an admirable attempt at substitute. You tried to bring order where there was none; semblance where there was discord. Authority to displace the vast blackness of the human heart – its frailties, its lapses – that had molested the world."

Her smile was rimmed by blue. Her eyes were bright. In them, Zelda saw knowledge. Saw the azure banks of insurmountable wisdom and boundless serenity. Saw the devil.

"You tried to wage what you thought was a war. Please, you must understand. There's never been a war."

"Then what would you call it?" Ganondorf gritted through bloody teeth, his anguish seething across the mounds of the fallen in front of him, behind Marin.

She blinked. Placed a finger cautiously to her cheek, as if apprehensive about being caught relaying the obvious.

"Um…" her finger tapped; her eyes scrunched quizzically. It painfully reminded Zelda of the real Marin, puzzled by something she's just read, a pluck of confusion washing over a slip of a girl surrounded by the castle's vast library.

"Clearing the attic?" she finished almost timidly.

Her implication was not what triggered their horror, their sudden hoarse breaths of desperation as they grasped it, as their minds seized it with a macabre understanding.

It was her nonchalance. She truly felt nothing as she insisted, yet again –

"I am the law," she repeated cheerfully. "There is no fight."

Zelda stepped to the fore. Brandished her blade and her beating heart.

"We're only alive because there is."

Marin bit her lip, again darting her eyes to either side, checking if it was safe to answer, if it was some trick that prompted the easily evident response.

"Oh, no," her tongue drawled the words, traced them sweetly in her mouth before releasing them. "You're alive because we haven't quite gotten the dust in the corners. Dreadful of us, really.

Zelda ignored her. Tried looking once more into her eyes, into those immeasurable depths. Blue, blue, blue.

"I'll bring you back, Marin," she whispered, clenching her sword's hilt. Feeling the blister of steel travel through her bone, along her spine.

"I swear it."

* * *

Pockets of molten mineral nearly singed a hole in his chest as his half-hearted strokes caught nothing but the wind. Across from him landed a girl sheathed in red, pouting from the lack of challenge.

"Link," came Midna from his shoulder. "I know how you must feel, but that isn't Aryll. If we're to survive…"

"Yeah," he breathed. "I know. I do. But I can't…expect myself to – "

The road to his right was abruptly cleaved from its center. Jagged columns of heat spurted from the line, the earth's blood at his sister's beck and call. A circle of fire traced itself languidly around him and Midna.

"There seems to be a misunderstanding, dear darling brother," Aryll tittered.

Beneath his feet, veins of liquid rock.

"Hurting _me_ is the least of your worries."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Uh, so it's been a year. At the risk of my impending (deserved) murder, I _am_ going to finish this fic. It's actually nearly there, y'know. I promise promise _promise_ that the next chapter will be out tomorrow. It's pretty much been written already, though it's short. Trust me though, it's quite a doozy.

Review? (and not just to tell me how much you want my head on a stake)


	31. Dance, Dance

**Author's Note:** As promised, the next chapter the next day! Dig in.

* * *

Dance, Dance

The air sung with steel.

Zelda focused her blade like a conductor's baton, her movements opulent, her twirls no less vicious for how elegant she rose with the swell of the orchestra, how her blood matched the battle's hymn.

Marin hummed, her eyes alight with what seemed like enjoyment as blue thrummed through her veins, out her palms.

Zelda cursed, twisted aside as it skimmed her earlobe, singeing it.

From above, a barrage of sapphire that came like rain, gouging the earth where it struck as she pivoted, ducked, darted. Still, it tore clothing, shredded her skin as she bit back a scream.

Her palm blistered with how tightly she held the hilt and swung. Metal crashed against Marin, but she remained unblemished where it struck.

Zelda strained herself, tried to dig the blade in, but Marin simply smiled as her arm pressed against it, pristine as the day she was born.

Two fingers against Zelda's temple, and a whispered promise.

"We'll right things. You'll see."

Zelda's gasp was swallowed as she curled herself hardly in time and the blast sent her careening into the side of a mountain.

She groaned as the sword tumbled loosely from her grip. Blood ran freely down her cheek, across her split lip.

At her side was somehow Ganondorf, even if he could barely stand.

"Stay down," he breathed. "I can't see you like this."

"I can't," she mumbled, blindly clutching at him. "I can't. We must fight. Even if it's hopeless."

His shoulders slumped, and he held her like a man who owned nothing but his desperation. A man who lived and died by well-water, but it had dried and he was left stranded.

"At least…" he tried a smile. "At the very least, we'll die together."

She returned it, fingers closing around his, palms slippery with both of their blood.

But they winced as their vision blared with the color of an unblemished sky, and Ganondorf choked.

His chest, run through with blue. Marin, innocuously floating five feet from them.

Zelda's throat caught.

"No," she sobbed. "No, no, no."

As his body dropped – a marionette with severed strings – anguish clutched hers and she dropped to her knees with him.

She placed her hand against a still-warm cheek.

"Please…" she whispered, tears mingling with blood. "Don't leave me here alone. You were my life."

The lack of answer seized her, dotted her heart with glaciers, and most of her broke.

She bent down and kissed cold lips.

Marin watched, affected a sad countenance, and drew slowly closer.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Wow. Dark turn, even for _this_ story. Review, please? :D

I know it was short, but we're coming to the close in the chapters ahead.

God I hope I don't disappear again for a year lol


	32. Starlight Canopy

Starlight Canopy

A mammoth, spun entirely from twilight, drove its tusks into the wall of churning magma.

In one moment it was instead a murder of crows, bombarding the wall with granules of darkness, the next a horde of vicious stags, stained the shade of midnight.

Midna stumbled to one knee, gasping as her magic dispersed with exhaustion. The molten column still stood.

The sun, blotted out by a canopy of leaves. Thickets protruded from what used to be a terrain of gravel. Lava had split the road, had run its course until it stretched dimly into the horizon.

The very Earth, straddling a teetering fence; on the one side searing passion and the other tranquil fortitude.

A thousand swords, at Link's beck and call, manifested and poised themselves towards the center of the greenery. With his urging, they converged, struck, gouged metal into foliage, but to no avail.

Anju burst gleefully from the eye of the storm, tearing towards him with blistering speed, metal shattering harmlessly against her small frame.

He attempted to flee, panic scrawled across his visage, but the wind at his back buoyed him against his will. Vines seized him, slithered among his rumpled clothes, constricted his breath.

Anju giggled, wiggling her fingers and suspending him above the river of orange.

Steel lined Link's limbs, his heart thudding painfully even as he carved his way out from the enclosure, the vines tumbling limply as if they were discarded flesh, consumed alive by the blazing rivulets below.

He stumbled onto what little land remained alongside Midna, and they both looked up.

"We don't stand a chance," Link gulped in what air he could, lungs scorched by exhaustion rather than the heat, his fingers bunching fabric around his knees.

"Well, I dunno what we expected," a hollow, throaty laugh. "They're divinity. We're just…us."

Link swiped a thumb against his lips; it came back bloody.

"No sense going out without kicking and screaming all the while."

A smirk, pale and fanged and littered with stars.

"I'm such a bad influence on you and I love it."

Link closed his eyes and composed his breathing.

"How about it?" he murmured. "We do this the way we're meant to. I _am_ a sword, after all."

And before her, skin became sheen, the planes of muscle thinned to edges. Flesh, smoothed to metal.

Before it could clatter to her feet, Midna grasped the Master Sword's handle. Polished, gleaming silver, the light of it nearly blinding her as she took a few experimental swings.

"Wow. Y'know, you're a lot prettier like this," she grinned.

 _Watch it._ Link's voice rung in her mind.

"This is weird," she muttered. "Isn't this weird? I'm, like, _holding_ you. Tell me I'm not the only one who finds this weird."

 _No time to marvel. They're coming._

Indeed they were, as she quickly darted back, magma erupting under her feet. Spirals of flame barreled past, nearly searing her head clean off as plants crept from below. They trailed languidly around her ankle, and she whirled her blade in a somersault. Flecks of green floated uselessly away.

She landed, now on the river's other bank.

 _Okay, yeah. This is weird._

"Right?!"

* * *

Marin sang. Her dulcet tones were like bubbles – playing across the surface of the canyon, liquid rainbow shimmering across the film of their membranes, bursting softly – with no soul around to hear it, except one.

Loosely clutched in her right hand was an arm, and from it dangled the princess.

Together they floated over plateaus, over plains of rock, beyond mountains.

The song drifted along the shell of Zelda's ear as she hung limply.

Marin sang, and the pair drifted closer, the sky tinged red and green in the distance.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Hey! Cool, Link did a thing. Or rather, is the thing. Neato. You guys still with me? Gosh I hope no one _dies_ or anyth- oh, wait. Sorry, Ganny-poo.

Stay tuned for next chapter! Review?!


End file.
